For years after Greyhound bought out Trailways of Oklahoma City, bus service was like Bill Maher's view of airflight: You didn't choose the carrier, the carrier chose you. Most of your riding was done via Greyhound and its helper services, unless you lived on the East Coast and wanted to go up and down the Megalopolis.
Now, finally; some competition where it belongs. Granted, it's limited service to eight large cities with Chicago as its center (and it seems more focused on competing against Amtrak), but it's a start. I could forsee a system of such connections all over the midwest, from Minneapolis to Cincinnati and Saint Louis to Pittsburgh with every semi-major city served (even if once a day each way). I could see four different routes of service from Detroit to Chicago:
- Detroit-Chicago nonstop
- Detroit-Ann Arbor-Jackson-Battle Creek-Kalamazoo-Saint Joe-Highland-Chicago
- Detroit-Flint-Lansing-Battle Creek-Chicago
- Detroit-Lansing-Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland-Saint Joe-Chicago
- Detroit-Toledo-Elkhart-South Bend-Highland-Chicago
Anyway, food for thought. Welcome food for thought, considering that Greyhound's been disassembling its network.
1 comment:
the megabusses in the UK are double-deck SCANNA's and handle 91 passengers, considerably more than the largest 55 seat capacity of MCI coaches in the US. That certainly helps the economics.
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